sukuriant

I just thought it might be interesting to test out the new Windows Live Writer on my LJ

Here is the result! Looking at the interface, I actually think it looks very nice. I've not seen how many features it has yet, though...

We so often use phrases like that in our regular conversation.

"Farewell"
"Have a nice day"
"Have a good day"

And maybe even:

"I hope you feel better" and
"Thanks!"

Words without meaning. Maybe we don't use them frivolously, but I know that in my own experience, I've said them without meaning it. Aren't we lying when we say them without meaning them? I'm sure we wouldn't want a person to have a terrible day after we've left them, and we wouldn't want the ill person to remain ill forever. Nor do we just not care whether or not they had done what they earned their thanks for. But are we truly thankful? do we really want their day to be pleasant?

Not that us wishing or not wishing them a pleasant day will affect it in the least -- but we may not sincerely, deeply mean it.

What would happen if we all used words sincerely, meaningfully?

There is a book out there where every word has an intent purpose -- even down to articles like "the".  And whether it was written by God, or not, for that is not the topic (although it has been affirmed in many places before), every book, every event, every conversation, every paragraph, every sentence, every word is full of meaning and depth. And the meaning can be found in the plain reading of Scripture. (read a poem like a poem, read history like history, understand there were figures of speech and recognize them, etc).

Now, there may be places in the Bible where people were lying, or half-willed --- but in those places, the Bible is absolutely sincere in it's declaration that they said that --- and there was an express, determined reason for that bit of text to be found within Its pages.

Just some thoughts for the day.

It's my senior year in college (I'll be a senior for an expected 4 semesters, though (fall, spring, summer, fall). It finally hit me that this year is going to be a lot more encompassing than my previous years. I have a test in sociology on Wednesday... I'll be studying tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. I'm in another class, Computer Architecture, and I really don't know what's going on... I really need to get studying there. I think I'm getting along with Matrix and Linear Algebra... that one's starting to make more sense (except when I miss a class), and Computer Graphics, although difficult, is a fun class.

I'm going to be much busier than I'm used to, and it's going to require a number of changes in my own life schedule...

I noticed last week that I wasn't really prepared for Tuesday night men's group... I hadn't had the chapter read. I determined to read the chapter (or half chapter, as the chapter had been spread across 2 weeks). I didn't get it read for this week... didn't even start... but, Lord willing, I'll read it this week for next week. The book we're reading is Basic Bible Interpretation by Roy B. Zuck. From the classes I've attended, it's a good book, explaining things and defending things that just make sense, like "look at the syntax of the sentence to understand what the Bible is trying to say" and "look at the context", etc. The Bible, although God-breathed, was still written through humans, and as such, it should be read and understood like any other text... in the history parts, it's written like history. In poetry, it's like poetry, etc -- but there is always one true meaning to a passage. Makes sense, doesn't it?

In my personal Bible reading, I'm going through Hebrews, reading all the verses that the author quotes. (Hebrews' author doesn't declare themselves, although many evidences point to Paul). That's been a very interesting read.. I encourage you all to do the same. The one that's hit me the most loudly has been Hebrews 1:5, where it says:

For to which of the angels did He ever say:
      “ You are My Son,
      Today I have begotten You”? (NKJV)

That is a quote from Psalm 2. I encourage any of you to read Psalm 2, because not only did God say that to His Anointed, to Jesus, but He said everything in Psalm 2 to him. And that is impressive. I'm interested to see what else is said, and can be learned from reading the context of the verses cited. The Hebrew audience, I expect, would have known the reference, and everything that went with it.

No one ever hears me talk about him. And those people who do, it's usually full of anger.

My mother gave me a different picture of it. I was the firstborn child of our family. I'm also the only child of our family. That wasn't expected. I believe there were two miscarriages early on in the marriage. I've been told before that that's really hard on a family. It caused a lot of strife in the family. Looking back on what happened, my mom said she would have handled a couple of situations differently.

My father thought the reason for the miscarriages was himself. He was afraid of that. I'm not supporting adultery at all, I'm not. But that's what happened. As a last ditch effort to save the family, we went up to North Carolina as a vacation to just all be together for a little while. For those of you who don't know, my mom and dad are divorced, so... needless to say... it wasn't a permanent fix. But that's really where the story begins.

There was a divorce. Mom got the house. She couldn't make payments. My father helped pay. My father gave my mother the house because he wanted me to be able to live. This is my dad. I'd never heard any of this. My dad really loved me. I never knew about any of this. For years, one of the main things I could remember about my dad was the strife between he and my mother during the marriage after the miscarriages, and after the divorce for various things. I remember telling my dad something as a relay for my mother. It was such a cold relationship.

After a while, I heard my mother tell me that my dad would be really proud of me. I didn't get it. Just recently, this was all revealed to me. It brings me to tears to know that my dad did care about me. I have a dear friend on the phone, and I'm not really listening to her as I type this post... I don't know if she even knows that I'm crying. But my dad loved me that much... to pay the bills for the house... I know it seems so stupid. But he gave mom the house so that I could have a good life.... God bless him...

Now why don't I see God like that... and He's given me so much more

I tend to read many more journals entries than I write. Not that that's a bad thing, I just don't really find the need to post the latest happenings in my LJ. Things don't tend to be monumental and earth shaking. And really, this is another one of those non-monumental, non-earthshaking posts; I just figure that I should update, since it's been a good long while.

I'm back in school, taking a few classes:

Matrices and Linear Algebra
Sociology
Computer Architecture
Computer Graphics

The classes seem interesting this semester, although I really don't know why, but I don't feel like I'm back in school yet, which isn't really good... considering that means I'm a bit more lax on homework and such.

Being back in school, means that I'm back in Orlando... and Orlando is where my church is.

I would say "needless to say", but I don't know if it truly is known so well that it's 'needless'. Going back to this church, not the others I've been to, and going to the men's group has been a bit of a jolt to me. I love pastor Dave's sermons ( http://sermonaudio.com/source_detail.asp?sourceid=cornerstone ). We started Hebrews not too long ago, and it's definitely a REALLY good Book. I wasn't at church the first couple of sermons (although I've heard the first one online), but I've been attending church for all the later ones. This last week was the first time in a while that I'm able to say that my devotions (reading my Bible and such) have been 'fair' instead of 'poor' for a long while. That was pleasant.

A friend of mine is going to be speaking today in the free-speech green ( a place on campus where you can just speak out about various things). The title on his outline is: "Does God Exist? Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God", just to give you a clue as to what the speech is going to be about. Unfortunately, I have class at the same time as the speech, so I won't be able to hear it X.x. But, you know... Maybe he'll record it or something, and I'll get the chance to hear it.

( Personal stuff )

I've not really taken any pictures of anything lately, which is kinda depressing, but I haven't really given myself the time. Much of my time has been wasted watching TV, or doing homework, or work, or whatever. Maybe some time in the near future I'll start to really take pictures again... not just one or two here or there, but actually trips where a major purpose is to take lots of pictures :-)

Why is it that I can cry over something like my pet biting me.... it hurt, but not enough to cry... I think I was more emotionally scarred. But, how is it that I can cry over that, but I cannot cry over the wicked things I've done against God... I can recite the wickedness, but it never phases me.... *sighs*

Just thinking about it

Well, I'll be off to class in less than 30 minutes.... I have a once a week photography class 6-8 on Thursdays for pretty much the whole summer... Monday through Thursday I'm taking speech.... it's one of those -have to take- classes, but it should be interesting. Today we went over the recent Republican debate thing and also looked at some of the Democratic one that had apparently occurred earlier... Some controversial topics were brought up, and I made a fool of myself by mentioning that if Iran had nukes we could just remove them from the map... I could give a million and 1 excuses for why I said something so foolish, but I was wrong, and, after thinking about it for a moment, I realized it. I didn't say anything to the class, but I should have apologized. I hadn't thought about all the lives that would be lost in such an event... and the repercussions in the world would have been bad too... if the many lives lost weren't bad enough.

Saying that really messed me up, too... One of the next things we talked about was abortion, and I couldn't say anything because I would end up sounding like a hypocrite. And in honesty, I would have been. In abortion, a baby that hasn't done anything wrong is killed because they were either inconvenient, deformed, undesired, or the result of something bad like a rape. They didn't do anything wrong, but they are punished. Had I said anything, I would have definitely sounded like a hypocrite because I had, not too much earlier, supported eradicating a bunch of people from the face of the earth, many of which probably hadn't done anything in relation to Iran's nuclear weapon program. So yeah, I really messed up...


Some other things to talk about...
Recently, I started playing Monster Rancher 4 again. I've been a fan of the monster rancher series ever since I saw some old elementary school friends playing it on their play-station when we were in.... well, after 3rd grade... I don't think it was middle school, although it might have been. I didn't like monster rancher 2 when it came out, but, going back, I think I would have liked it now. I've played many of them, from MR1 on the play-station to MR4 on the PS2... The one I liked the least, I think, would be MR3, although it, too, was a pretty good game. If you play the game, I presently have the regular Garu/Garu, an evil samurai looking thing... I think I may get rid of him, and the blue-antlan Antlan/Tiger(?) that you get from the MR4 CD... I think I didn't have a great many CDs to test when I first made the monsters. It's been fun.

Some friends from Church and I went to Busch Gardens last weekend... it was a lot of fun. I didn't get as much of a variety of pictures as I would have desired, but it was still fun, none-the-less. We went on a bunch of rides. Personally, I went on both parts of the wooden roller coaster there, the (sorry for the spelling) Montoo.. the... the one ride that means a cat of some sort... I want to say puma, but I know that's wrong.... as well as Sheikra. A couple of the people and myself also went on one water ride, twice. The rapids one. The first time I got SOAKED, it was great! Unfortunately, some of that water got into my mouth 'cause my mouth was open when we it a rapid, or something..... yeah.... icky... Oh! And there are these squirter things that our friends shot... the first time we went through, I saw the water coming and was like: "they're gonna miss... wow, that water is really direct.... uhm.... eep!" The water seemed like a direct hit on myself and the person sitting next to me... that started the water part, and it just got crazier from there

At any rate, I need to eat something real quick and head out for photography class!

This week is exam week. A couple of hours ago, with God's help, I finished my part of the manual that I've had to do for my Tech Writing class. I don't have to care about that anymore! W00t! Now, for the rest of the week I have to study and stuff.... I'm kinda being lazy right now... yeah.... but I will get to work eventually/soon. :-D

So... yeah...

Exam Schedule:

Tuesday, Thursday:
World History
Tech Writing

Friday:
Programming Languages

Monday (April 30,2007):
Discrete 2

I'll be busy, so I will probably not be talking online much for the next week.

I'm going to be taking Speech and Photography 1 this summer.... so... yeah!

Figured I should update y'all... I may post something later

http://icr.org/article/3159/

This is really good.

I do apologize for not really being on for the past few days, I've been studying for a test that's today at 4:30. I'm not done studying, I was just wasting time on the internet before I went and started again.

When this test is complete, I hope to be more available online. I expect that Jobby will come over, but he has to leave somewhere around 8ish, at which point I'll probably come online. So... yeah...

I must apologize, I didn't end up putting the stuff on the internet. I don't know if I can have pictures of copyrighted images on my site. I don't really know the rules and stuff for all that, so I decided against it..

At any rate, I haven't updated in a little while, and for that I do apologize. I guess... I actually don't know why I haven't posted in a while. School has been... well... school. Classes are sometimes interesting but not always. I've started reading the Chronicles of Narnia (starting with the first book "The Magician's Nephew"), so that's been interesting. It hasn't taken the forefront of my reading, however, so I'll probably inch through it slowly. Personally, I like C.S. Lewis' work. I'm also reading his early-life autobiography Surprised by Joy. That book is rather good, although it seems like a bit of a different writing style from Mere Christianity, another book I've read by him. The Screwtape Letters is also good... I haven't read all of that book yet, though.

At any rate, I just finished half of an assignment for Technical Writing (for the second half, I have to show what the errors were that I fixed in my version of the sentences), and must shut down for the evening.

To those of you who do read my LJ still, I must share something that has come to my attention and needs to be put into practice:
Don't live as though there is no eternity. Live each day in light of eternity... not in the temporal pleasures that disappear so quickly. Seek the truth and submit to it.

Okay, so I got bored and tested this thingie. It's kinda interesting. If this works, I'll be rather pleased and might start using this a bit more.... maybe. If nothing else, it's another username to be logged onto in gAIM. :-) For all the people out there that use Jabber or whatever, this could be (yet another) instant messenger service for us! BWA HA HA HA er... yeah... at any rate, this is me testing the service. Link: http://www.livejournal.com/chat/

When I get a new Photobucket account, I'll be posting some pictures of a rather humorous wrapping job of a present a friend from school and church got me :-) hehe!

Okay, so I didn't quite get as many pictures as I had thought I would at the start of the trip, but that's okay, we did other stuff instead.

It was nice to hang out with the family and stuff.... I got to play pool with my Georgian uncle, (who is really good at it), and stuff... we saw a bunch of movies --- specifically The Muppet's Christmas Carol, which God allowed me to find at a nearby Barnes and Nobles! Mom was happy when she saw that find --- she was out at a horse store when I was there.

The people who went on the trip were mom and gramma (who went up the 26th), and my Floridian uncle and I (we went up on the 25th to get to go on some mountain bike trails prior to meeting the rest of the group) --- he left early to catch some trails on the way home.

Mom got a call during the trip which had some bad news.... my step father is using the D-word (divorce) flipantly... I don't know the situation, but I don't think mom did anything deserving of that. She has cancer --- well, God be praised, her cancer is really being defeated --- but yeah, that makes her kinda weak and stuff whenever she goes to chemo... but my stepfather isn't being the most supportive and stuff, apparently... I don't really want to share all of it, I don't know much I could share before I got in trouble, and I don't want to paint people in a bad light... just that my step-father is unsaved... It looks like they're probably going to get a divorce....

I think I've kinda gotten used to divorces.... it's sad when, when there's this much strife and mom tells me what's going on and how he's thinking about walking --- mom won't divorce him... he'll have to do it --- that I start thinking about what'll change when he's gone... how mom and I'll set up the pastures (mom lives on a farm... it's pretty cool)... (the property is relatively newly in our posession, and has a lot of land outside of pastures, so we're gonna put them in as time arises)... and stuff... we just kinda get used to the idea that he's going to leave and make plans for that.

At any rate, I figured I should share for those of you who are Christian and willing to pray. I don't care if my step-dad leaves or stays... mom and I have lived fine both ways... but I just want something to change. I'd like my stepfather saved... and the marriage... that's the right thing to happen.

Merry Christmas y'all!

I'm going up to Georgia today to see my aunt and cousin and such. I might not have internet up there, and I surely won't be using the internet as often as I usually do if it is there. I'll be up there for 4-5 days, so if I'm gone for that many, don't worry --- I'm just up north :-)

I have new camera stuff,

2GB mem card,
a second battery,
and filters,

so expect some more pictures!

Yeah


Hope y'all have a good Christmas and don't forget to celebrate the Reason for the season

There either is a God, or there's not.

If there is no God, then there is no right or wrong. Humanity can just do what it wants, when it wants, how it wants. I could kill my next door neighbor and have no problem. Why should I care? He's just not existing anymore.... I wanted some fertilizer anyway. Do I find pleasure in something? Oh, hey! let's pursue it! So a couple of people get hurt in the process, oh well... it's just a bunch of chemicals and I like getting pleasure out of mine, my way. Who do I have to report to, anyway? the worst that can happen is I can die.... oh no... no more existance

However, if there is a God, He is either active, or he is not.

If there is a God and He is active, then He intervenes in life, and has shown Himself in various ways, surely.
(Romans 1:20 NKJV :: For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse)
If there is a god and he is not active, then there are no miracles, no intervention, and no help... this god would also be uncaring and, one could even say, wicked.... because he has no love... especially no love for his creation...

But we have love, we do care for one another. Why? And where did this love come from? It's not all usery love either.... the lustful "love" eros as it's called in greek. We do have agape love, self-sacrificing love. It's not always exhibited, but it is sometimes. But it is there. And were do we learn somethiing like that? Or are we born with it? Although often selfish, what makes a human being sometimes not? Is it not love? Something given to us by our active Creator?

And what else? If there is a God, and He is active, then He has laid down some rules. It's not just about seeking pleasure any and every way I can... it's about finding out what He wants.... and doing it. When we aren't doing that, we're being rebels.... and rebels are punished

Wow

I've been kinda delaying on this one.... my computer is fixed... apparently, I just had something wrong with my current windows install

So, I tried to install linux.... and it was successful, it worked well and stuff... the second day the internet was working, but the console had some serious display errors (it looked like it wasn't taking all the buffer, so it kept adding to the buffer and then deleted it and put some in again... so it was this rapidly changing image of undiscernable lines...)... That didn't bother me, but I kinda gave up when I was installing the nVidia drivers... Another error was that my wireless card distributor doesn't share driver information... or something... so you have to run a program that runs windows drivers.... I didn't feel like that was right, so that wasn't installed... *shrugs* and I just didn't care and stuff, so windows was reinstalled...

It's pretty much set up, a friend is holding the data that I transfered, so once that is back on this computer, it'll be completely done.... *shrugs*

At any rate, it's been done for a while, I just hadn't gotten around to posting the update *shrugs* w00t

My computer is having some serious problems right now. A friend of mine thinks that the motherboard is dying. Symptoms including getting to the "Welcome" screen and the computer either BSODing right away, or just locking up so I can't use the mouse, but I can stare at the screen. Also, it's been hanging a bit lately.

I don't think it's going to be recovering anytime soon. Although, for some reason, I can get on the computer in safe mode... Like I am right now. (this probably isn't a good idea to be on the internet in safe mode, but oh well...

If anyone has any idea how to fix it, I'm all ears; in the mean time, I'm not going to be on the internet nearly as much as I have been in the past... I just... can't...

I will, however, be logging into the machines at the computer lab and stuff probably once or so a day (I also might try booting this computer with Knoppix (linux live CD which I'm downloading right now) so that I can get access to the internet and use of computer and stuff for the time being).

Sorry for the inconvenience, but I figured I should tell y'all before you started to wonder why my username hadn't been appearing for a week, or whatever...


yeah..

Lataz!

Y'all.... I love you...

Really, I do... I do care about y'all...

We used to have such great fellowship together... holding many things in common. And then something came between us.... It pains me to see the break between us, but there are things that cannot change...

Guys... the truth is out there... and I know how much we cling to things we can't hold on to, or things that seem so true and right and perfect and exactly what we're looking for... But it's not what seems true, it's what is true...

I don't know who reads my LiveJournal anymore; it doesn't really matter, I guess... someone does, surely... I remember at one time there was a person who would message me anonymously often. They haven't posted for a long while... at least, I haven't noticed them.

I have a question for all of you; for you, Sabor, Myr, Pyx, Drak.... yeah, I still remember y'all... I see you online a lot, too... don't really know what to say. I remember when we used to hang out; I remember sharing stuff with y'all and y'all sharing stuff with me... good stuff, bad stuff, crazy stuff.... Guys, I really do care for y'all...

I know it feels vain and pointless, but I was thinking on y'all again today... if I could send y'all a book that cost nothing for you all and is about 240 easy reading pages... I dunno... maybe something... I feel stupid even asking; it sounds like I'm trying to sell something, but I'm not...

I'm serious, I'll have some mailed to any one of you.... I just ask that you read it... you don't even have to tell me about it (although I'd love to hear about it)... what do y'all say...

It's a book that goes through everything.... is there a God or gods? the universe, evolution, accuracy of prophecy, out of body experiences, the Law, the good and bad news, your part, lots of stuff... I personally haven't read it all the way through myself, but I'm working on it....

please guys...
Blacktyrannomon... you too (by the way.... I don't know how to spell that word :-P I keep having to look it up!)

Seey'all later...
Travis, formerly known as Sakkin

This isn't going to be a long post, just something I learned today...

The Charismatic movement..... it's a movement in the church that puts feeling and experience in a higher position than the Absolute Truth of Scripture.... (even when they contradict, they choose the experience rather than the truth.... this is simply not Christian)

There are activities in there that outright should not be. That's an obvious statement; but something that struck me as wrong is that during their services and in their own time, they experience out of body experiences and other things that seem a great deal to me like astral projection. Also, they will, randomly in the service, be barking like dogs, acting like oxen, lions, eagles. Now, is this a church service? or an Otherkin meet? The professed being filled with the Holy Spirit cannot be that.

There was an instance in one service where a person was literally thrown like 30 feet. An ex-pagan that was in our class attested to the fact that those sort of things happen in the Occult, not in Christendom. These are demonic activities, not ones where God is active.

Just because something fantastic (literally) is happening does not mean that it is from God, especially if they are calling the people to go after other gods, like Deuteronomy 18 talks about...

Just something I learned today....